Calçots are a variety of long, thick green onions that look like slightly skinny leeks. They ripen in winter and have their peak season in January, February, and March. The center of production is in Tarragona, namely around the town of Valls. Like many in the northeast of the country, when calçots are at their peak, we head to Tarragona for a calçotada, a celebration of them grilled among friends.
For most, that means going to one of the rustic country restaurants in the area (my favorite is Masia Bou, which began grilling them for paying customers back in 1929; before that, they did it only for family and friends). For lucky others, though, it means heading to the farmhouse of friends. For many years, that is what we did on a Sunday in early February. We headed down to an old family hazelnut farm outside Falset with another forty or so others to devour the calçots planted on their land.
The routine was always the same. Calçots were arranged side by side on a wide metal screen, and once branches from hazelnut, almond, or olive trees were flaming, the screen was laid on top. The calçots were grilled until blackened on the outside, wrapped in newspapers, and kept warm in upturned terra-cotta roof tiles while the remaining ones were grilled. Once all of the calçots had been done, and the embers burned down, lamb chops, quartered rabbits, and fat, fresh pork sausages were laid across the screen to cook.
Meanwhile, in the courtyard of the house, makeshift tables were set up from sheets of plywood and benches from planks supported by upside-down plastic buckets. There were earthen bowls of olives, roasted vegetables in garlic-infused olive oil (escalivada, page 72), and bottles of hearty wine from a local cooperative in Priorat.
Calçots are eaten in a particular way. The blackened outside layer is peeled off with the fingers, exposing brilliant white flesh. Dragged through a flat bowl of salsa romesco (see page 170)—a sauce made from dried, sweetly mild red peppers, tomatoes, almonds and hazelnuts, garlic, and olive oil—the calçot is held above the head and lowered down into the mouth to eat the soft, sauce-slathered end. Eating calçots tends to be messy business, and long bibs are generally worn by all but the very confident. With groups like this, that meant no one had on a bib. If you weren’t confident, then you wore old clothes. Bibs are considered the province of restaurants.
Twenty calçots per person is about the norm, but some of our friends devoured many times that. The brother of one friend was once the village champion. I read in the newspaper a few years ago that the winner of a contest in Falset had eaten 237 of them in a single sitting.
Once the spent remains of the calçots were cleared away, and char-blackened hands washed, we uncorked more wine and then set upon the platters of grilled meat that we dabbed with pungent allioli (see page 337). For dessert there were bowls of fruit—golden-speckled green apples, elongated conferencia pears, and, if we were lucky, some early strawberries—and usually a spongy bizcocho cake (see page 279) that someone had brought.
At that point, someone went into the kitchen to prepare coffee while a thin-spouted beaker of golden dessert wine went around the group. We lingered at the table, as jokes, stories, and compliments on the food flowed—and questions on the romesco recipe remained unanswered. (If the recipe is given on such an occasion, don’t believe it: something will surely be “confused” or “forgotten.”) People finally got up, sprawled under the long shadows of the old hazelnut trees, talked in low voices, or maybe read from the sports section of the Sunday newspaper about the previous evening’s fútbol matches, and later, pulling on sweaters as it began to cool, strolled through the orchard, crunching twigs and spent hazelnut shells underfoot until it was time to drive back to Barcelona.
Not long ago, our friends uprooted the hazelnut trees and the patch set aside for calçots and planted grape vines, and the calçotada tradition came to an unfortunate halt. I am happy for them—their wine has been quickly successful, and, with bottles of it frequently gracing our table, their farm remains a year-round presence in our house.
But come February the urge for calçots returns, and we head south for a calçotada. But now, like most, we eat them in a country restaurant with long white bibs firmly tied around our necks.
